Children's drawings of topics differing in emotional significance--effects on placement relative to a self-drawing: a research note.

Children aged 4-6 years were asked to add drawings of someone they liked and someone they disliked to a picture of themselves. Liked figures were drawn closer than disliked figures to the self-figure only when the procedure was standardized and controlled so as to equate the tasks of positioning each of the added figures. With unmatched positioning tasks there was no effect of significance of figure on placement. The data demonstrate that a child's emotional attitude to a figure can affect its placement in a drawing, but that the effect is weak and easily masked.